Econ_May_05

The Economist

May 5th 2018

N APASEO EL GRANDE, a town in the

central Mexican state of Guanajuato, the

bodies are stacking up. In February gang-

sters killed a local politician. The remains

of another victim were found in four bags

scattered across town. Police made a simi-

lar discovery in April. In the first three

months of this year the municipality of

85,000 people had 43 murders, up from 20

in all of2016. That is about the same as Lon-

don, a city 100 times larger and currently

panicking about its highmurder rate.

A visitor might not notice anything

amiss. Shiny cars made in nearby factories

cruise the streets and children play in the

main square. But residents are frightened.

Bouncing a child on his knee in his living

room, Efraín Rico Rubio, a former city

councillor, now an administrative worker

at a university, describes the violence.

“Three blocks down they killed someone,”

he says, “and three blocks in the other di-

rection.” He sees little prospect ofimprove-

ment. Schoolchildren “all want to be El

Chapo”, a drug baron who became a folk

hero by escaping twice from prison. (He

was caught again in 2016 and extradited to

the United States.)

The town and the state it belongs to are

suffering from a double blow. One is a na-

tional crime wave, during which the mur-

der rate broke through its previous record

of2011. That peakcame after the then presi-

dent, Felipe Calderón, deployed the army

double the national rate.

The rise in violence is among the main

issues in the general election scheduled for

July 1st. Nearly half of Mexicans say crime

is the main problem in their area. The dis-

appearance of three film students in Gua-

dalajara in March, and the discovery that

their bodies had been dissolved in acid,

sparked large protests last month. The first

of three debates among five presidential

candidates, held on April 22nd, began on

the theme of security. Their proposals

were not encouraging. Andrés Manuel Ló-

pezObrador, the leftist front-runner, misdi-

agnosed the problem. His proposed sol-

utions are radical but, at best, part of the

answer. His twomain rivalswere vague.

Guanajuato’s prosperity, once thought

to deter crime, now seems to be attracting

it. The state’s south is part of an industrial

corridor that stretches from Aguascalien-

tes to Querétaro. Factories in the region

produce cars and other goods for tariff-free

export to theUnited States andCanada un-

der the North American Free-Trade Agree-

ment. A quarter of Guanajuato’s work-

force is employed inmanufacturing.

Gangs fromnearby Jalisco andMichoa-

cán moved into the state from 2015. They

are not led by El Chapo-style narcos. They

make most of their money from theft and

extortion. Some of the loot, including

grain, car parts and furniture, is hijacked

from trains bound for the United States.

The biggest money-maker is fuel theft.

Nearly a fifth of recorded cases occur in

Guanajuato. The country-wide cost of this

to Pemex, the state-controlled oil firm, is

more than 30bn pesos ($1.6bn) a year.

Huachicoleros

, as the thieves are called,

fight each other and oil-industry workers

for control of pipelines, just as drug gangs

war over highways, border crossings and

street corners. A politician in Guanajuato

to fight drug gangs. His tactic of capturing

or killing kingpins caused the gangs to split

into warring factions and to enter new

lines of business. The current president,

Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office in

2012, promised tohalve themurder rate. In-

stead, after an initial decline it rose sharply

(see chart). By March this year the number

of murders during Mr Peña’s presidency

had exceeded the death toll under Mr Cal-

derón. The murder rate so far in 2018 is

around 25% higher than it was in 2011.

Guanajuato’s second problem is that it

is new to such violence and thus less pre-

pared for it. In 2011 its murder rate was half

the national average. Now it has soared to

Mexico

A tropical crime wave

APASEO EL GRANDE

Themurder rate broke a record last year and is still rising. The solutions proposed

by themain candidates forpresident are unconvincing

The Americas

Also in this section

35 Mexico’s murdered mayors

36 Bello: The crisis of Argentine

gradualism

NAFTA’s no help

Sources: INEGI; Secretariat

of Public Security

*January-March 2018,

annualised

Mexico, homicides per 100,000 population

2011 12 13 14 15 16 17 18*

Guanajuato state

National average

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